This invention relates to a device for the child seat in a shopper trolley, where the child seat is pivotally supported in the area of the handle bar of the trolley, so that the openings through the adjacent end piece form passages for the child""s legs when the child seat has been pivoted into the trolley, into an approximately horizontal position, the shopper trolley preferably being of the type, which can be inserted partially into other shopper trolleys through an end wall, which can be swung up, to allow stacking in the horizontal direction.
Child seats of the kind in question are not safe, since, by turning itself, the child can easily bring one foot up on the seat, from where it is easy to get up into a standing position, or the child can remain lying on its knees on the seat. Such situations may easily result in the child falling to the floor. Fatal accidents and serious accidents resulting in permanent injuries have happened, caused by falls from the child seat of the shopper trolley.
The passages through the end piece of the shopper trolley nearest to the push handle bar/cross-bar cannot be restricted as such, because this would make it difficult, possibly impossible, to place a child""s legs through the openings. Therefore, these permanent passages should be wide and spacious insertion openings, which the child""s legs can easily be put through and pulled out of later.
According to the present invention there has therefore been provided a safety device in the form of a transversal body adjustable heightways, which is lowered, when the child""s legs have been put through the passage openings of the end piece of the shopper trolley, from an upper idle stand-by position to a lower active securing position, wherein the safety body restricts the passage openings for the child""s is legs heightways from the top. When this safety body is in one active lower securing position, this position may correspond to one of a number of different height positions depending on the thickness of the child""s thighs. The safety body can thus be adjusted heightways and be fixed at the level set.
According to a particularly advantageous embodiment of the invention, the frame for the support of the safety bar has a plate-like holder at the top, which may be bent into shape from transparent plastic material, for example. In its active position, i.e. when the shopper trolley is not in the stacked position, the upper surface of this plate-like holder element will face the person pushing the shopper trolley, and in a known manner the holder may contain information and/or advertisement and be provided with a clamp for the temporary fastening of a shopping list.
This information carrier may alternatively be directly connected to the inwards/upwards pivotal end wall of the shopper trolley, and may be angled so at its top that its plate-shaped main element (the information-carrying part), sloping downwards/rearwards in the position of use, comes to rest, as the end wall is pivoted inwards/upwards, on or above the transversal handle.
The safety element, which may have a shape resembling a clothes"" hanger, which can be adjusted heightways and can be fixed at different levels, may with advantage be secured to a vertically displaceable slide, which can be fixed in different positions of height, and which may have one or more projections or similar engagement means releasably engaging at least one rack oriented vertically, which engagement can be temporarily released when the slide with the safety element is moved upwards or downwards for the purpose of height adjustment. The slide with the safety element and the projection/projections/engagement means are preferably biased towards a position in order to establish and maintain the engagement of the rack(s) in the height position set, preferably by means of a helical spring inserted between the slide and a counter means, which is immovable in the cushioning directions (axial direction) of the spring, but displaceable upwards and downwards in the directions of displacement of the slide, said helical spring extending perpendicularly to the longitudinal direction of the rack(s). By subjecting the slide with the safety element to a pressure force centrally, directed opposite the back-springing direction of the helical spring, and in the axial direction of the spring, the spring is compressed and tightened, while at the same time the one or more protrusions of the slide are disengaged sideways from the respective tooth notch or notches of the rack(s), whereby at least one projection lands in a vertical guide groove.
With the projection of the slide gliding displaceably in the guide groove, the slide with the safety element may be displaced up or down, with the slide in the condition pushed in against the action of the compression spring, until the wanted height position of the safety element is reached.
The effective height position of the safety element will normally depend on the thickness of the child""s thighs. When the child is to be removed from the child seat, the slide with the safety element is pressed in against the action of the compression spring, so that said projection is brought out of engagement from a rack notch of the respective rack(s) and lands in the vertical guide groove, in order for the slide with the safety element to be pushed upwards into an idle stand-by position.